I think he was afraid I’d get caught with that thing. I’m almost certain he had thought it over and had decided to put as much distance between us as possible. I know he watched as I walked away, and when I’d hidden the suitcases in the shed, he was still there among the trees. I didn’t wave. I just stood with hands in the pockets of my skirt. For perhaps a few more seconds, we looked at each other, then he was gone, and I had turned to head back through the orchard.
A transceiver. Ah, merde! How on earth was I to get it to the farm?
André de Verville is the last to arrive. As the others must, I see his car turn in. Getting out to stand before the gates, he’s like an old, old man but someone shouts to bring the car up to the house. Was it Jules? I wonder.
No, not Jules, and not Dupuis, either. That voice … ‘Have you had a chance to talk to her?’ André shouts back.
Someone else says, ‘No.’ Dupuis, I think.
‘We mustn’t hurt her. I’m insisting. If you refuse, I’ll turn around and take what’s coming to me.’
Dupuis walks out to meet him halfway along the drive, but André nervously drops the cigarette that has been offered and stoops to pick it up and clean it off. They both look down the drive towards the gates, the road, and the forest beyond. ‘Out there, my friend …’ I can hear Dupuis saying. ‘A note … She wants to speak to you first. Yes, you. Ah, don’t worry so much. Just talk to her.’
All lies, of course, except for the note, but poor André who doesn’t want to hurt me anymore is to be the negotiator, not Jules, and not the Vuittons, either.
He’s much older, greyer, thinner, but is there really someone else, that voice I heard? Dupuis, Louis and Dominique Vuitton, Jules, André, and … Is it Schiller?
The back road to Barbizon was below me, down through the barren trees. In that spring of 1941, I was thinking of so many things as I rode my bicycle along it. Of Tommy and Nicki, of the robbery, the wireless set that was then behind me-everything, it seems. Marie was five, so she was in school all day, as was Jean-Guy, but would I ever see them again?
The big front carrier basket was full of things, old clothes, two bottles of wine, some cheese, bread, and eggs, for I’d good laying hens-cash for when I needed it-and the day was so beautiful I’d even undone the top buttons of my dress and was glad it had crept up to my knees. A gentle rise soon took me to another hill. I stood up to slug it until forced to hop off, only to hear what I simply didn’t want: a Wehrmacht lorry.
As it passed, men leaned out to whistle and wave, so I smiled and waved back, but the thing stopped, and I didn’t hesitate because if I did, it would be suicide. ‘Schnell!’ one of them yelled. Two others hopped down. Hands pressed against my seat and touched my legs; others encircled my waist as I was lifted into that thing. There were perhaps twenty of them, sitting on benches that were on either side of the back: young men in their grey-green uniforms. I grinned, I smiled, I said, ‘Merci, mes amis,’ and tried to act the silly young country girl, though of course I was not so young anymore.
One offered a cigarette, others looked at my bare legs, the sabots I’d been wearing lately, the undone buttons and heaving breasts. ‘So, where are you off to today?’ I asked.
In broken French, I learned that they were to do un ratissage, a raking of the forest. ‘We can only take you to the edge of the woods.’
‘A search for poachers?’ I asked and raised my eyes in mock alarm.
The heavy one, a Gefreiter, let his gaze travel up my legs to linger on my chest. ‘Poachers?’ he asked. ‘Are there such things?’
They all grinned and looked at me. It was illegal to hunt, trap rabbits or birds, yet lots did and I was just itching to buy myself a ferret. Three months in jail for a woman, if caught, forced labour in Germany for a man. This also applied to the illegal taking of firewood.
I shrugged and tried to look as if I’d been smoking cigarettes forever. ‘So, if it’s not poachers, what then?’ I asked, flicking ash aside. I was really pretty good at it. Very saucy.
It was the Gefrieter who stripped me with his eyes and said, ‘A man.’ Nothing else. It could mean anything or everything, but was I sex-starved, they wondered, or was it that they already thought this, for it was crowded and we were all squeezed together. The bike had been taken to the front, where a couple of them steadied it between themselves. All had rifles and field kits, and merde, but that private first class thought he knew me. ‘You’re the one the Oberst Neumann stays with. The one with the big house and the kids.’
There was nothing for it but to agree. ‘Oui, c’est moi,’ I said and flicked ash again, harder that time. ‘Is it so bad? He seems okay to me.’
‘Neumann,’ one of them said, and the smiles began to fade.
‘Schiller, too,’ I told them.
The Gefreiter’s’s eyes found mine, and for a long time he looked at me in a different way until the lorry stopped suddenly and we all lurched forward and back. The bicycle went first and then myself. One leaped down to the road, another hung on to me while the Unterfeldwebel, who had been riding in the cab, gave the orders.
‘Your papers, madame. It’s just a formality.’ This guy was even bigger, tougher than the Gefreiter.
They set up a roadblock. Three men were to be left while others worked the woods on either side. I handed over my papers. I didn’t need an Ausweis to go to the farm, but the sergeant took his time. His thumbs were big and strong, the nails dirty, the skin cracked in places. ‘What’s the purpose of your visit?’
‘To see my mother. To take her some things.’
He pawed through the carrier basket, found the wine and eggs, fingered the cheese. I hesitated. He looked at them and glanced at me. I shrugged, I started to say, ‘Please don’t break the eggs,’ and then found the will to smile. ‘Those are for my mother, but she has chickens of her own so you may have a few, if you like, but in payment for the lift, you understand.’ It was but a guess, a gamble: Was I right about him? Dear God, I hoped so.
A swiftness came to the look he gave. One of the men produced a haversack and the stuff disappeared as if by magic, so I knew they’d done this lots of times. ‘The rest is to trade,’ I heard myself saying of the clothing, even though bartering was illegal and he damn well knew it. ‘I need some potatoes to use as seed for my garden.’
It was a little late for planting them, but he let that one pass. ‘What’s in the suitcases?’
‘More of the same.’
His arm brushed mine as he walked towards the carrier and I turned sideways to look at him. One of my hands was on the seat, the other on the handlebars, my sabots firmly planted but could I kick them off fast enough?
There was a rope that tied the suitcases down, and I’d wound it round and round and tied it tightly with several big knots.
We waited-all of us. The Unterfeldwebel favoured his chin in thought. He was from Mecklenburg, maybe, or Pommern. Thick-headed if he wanted, also swift and sly, but had he realized that the catches on those suitcases were British, not Continental? There was a difference, and this finally telegraphed its little message to me since even Dmitry hadn’t noticed, or had he deliberately failed to mention it?
The men were as if rooted to the roadside, their guns at the ready. Bees hummed among the tall grasses and wild flowers. My dress was pulled tightly across my chest. It clung to my legs, and again I thought of making a run for the woods but knew what they’d do to me if I should-they’d all got that look about them.
My papers were handed back. ‘Tell the Oberst Neumann that we were very thorough with you.’
I nodded, suppressed the quivering, folded the papers and tucked them away in a pocket, and finally had the presence of mind to say, ‘Thanks for the lift. That was very kind of you.’